May Rosary Reflections

Why May Rosary reflections? May is the month of Mary. It’s the month when we turn our eyes toward the Mother of God and she turns our eyes toward her Son. It’s a beautiful exchange, a relationship of wonder and love. I like to focus on the glorious mysteries during Easter.

By Suellen Dusek

Praying the Glorious Mysteries always engenders a sense of victory. Each mystery, framed up in our mind’s eye, holds the promise that we, the Body of Christ, will follow our Lord in His resurrection and ascension into heaven. Some day. But for now, we have things to deal with here and now that challenge our faith in so many ways. Praying the Rosary helps.

Today, I prayed the Glorious Mysteries. For years, I’ve made Easter into a sort of Glorious Mysteries boot camp. Rather than switching things up between the various sets of mysteries according to the days of the week, I choose to pray only the Glorious set. It’s like a mini, multi-week retreat. It gives one the chance to dig in really deep, and that’s the point. Here’s my takeaway for today.

Rosary Reflections

The Fourth Glorious Mystery: the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary into Heaven

Do you remember watching Disney’s 1991 animated version of “Beauty and the Beast”? If so, do you recall the scene near the very end, when the Beast dies as the last petal fades and falls from a magical rose? Then, in a burst of cosmic energy, the music swells as he’s lifted from the ground and brought back to new life, in the perfect form he once enjoyed before he was marred by an enchantress’s spell! There is something so spiritually inspiring about that scene. It never gets old.

When I picture Mary’s assumption into heaven, I imagine her being lifted from this sin-weary plane into the arms of our Lord. I imagine all the loving angelic hands and wings a-flurry as they gently prod her awake for all of eternity. I see Mary’s beautiful eyes aglow with love and joy as she awakens to the glorious vision of her Son’s smiling face. I imagine the wrinkles in her brow smoothed by her Son’s tender caress, her tresses lengthening and curling around the fresh face of the young maiden she once was, as she must have appeared at the Annunciation. Her youth is returned to her in full flower. Streams of light—graces—flow from every limb and all her features. Being full of grace as she was on Earth, those graces can no longer be contained within her physical form and spill forth in the most dazzling array. Her halo forms the natural expression of her grace, out-poured. No wonder she is often referred to as our Mediatrix of Graces. Light emanates from her, effortlessly. Its source is her Son, and she reflects and disperses His light in every direction, like a prism, magnifying our Lord.

Read: Our Lady of the Rosary.

When I pray this particular decade of the Rosary, I pray for union with Christ. Even as Mary was reunited with Jesus her Son, we will be reunited with Him for all of eternity, as well. Rest in that assurance for a few minutes. Breathe it in, like celestial air, and exhale slowly. Close your eyes as you listen to the birds sing happily outside…

A glorious springtime is coming, a springtime of the soul for all eternity. Mary points the way, and she always points to Jesus.